Why This Harvard Diplomat Became a 'Badass Granddad'

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club, where we explore what it really means to live longer and better. I'm Dr. Joe Casciani, a geropsychologist focused on the mindset Habits and Science of Aging Well. Each episode brings you practical ideas and conversations to help you stay engaged, resilient, and purposeful at any age. And now on to today's program. What does it mean to live a meaningful life, especially as we grow older? In today's episode, I'm joined by John Graham. An 83-year-old former diplomat, co-founder of the Giraffe Heroes Project, and creator of the popular Badass Granddad video series, reaching over 120,000 followers across social platforms. John spent decades telling stories of individuals who stick their necks out to solve real-world problems His work challenges the idea that aging is a period of decline. Instead, he makes a compelling case that later life can be a time of renewed purpose, creativity, and engagement. First, a little background. John Graham is the Giraffe Heroes Project Executive Director. It's principal speaker and workshop leader. And director of Giraffe Heroes International, the overseas affiliates launched by the project. John was a U.S. diplomat for 15 years where his assignments included revolutionary Libya, Vietnam, NATO, the U.S. mission to the U.N., and a stint as a foreign policy advisor to Senator John Glenn. He joined the Giraffe Heroes Project staff in 1983 His degrees are from Harvard and Stanford, and his mountain climbing credits include the first ascent of the north wall of Denali, a climb that's never been repeated. He's the author of Outdoor Leadership, It's Up to Us, Stick Your Neck Out, and Quest. John, welcome to our program.

I'm glad to be here, Joe. Thanks for inviting me.

You're very welcome. Should I address you maybe as Ambassador Graham? Is No, no, no, not necessarily.

Nothing like that. Nothing like that. No, no, John is fine. Okay.

You've had a long and varied career from diplomacy to nonprofit work to digital storytelling. What continues to drive you at this stage of life?

What drives me is the meaning I found for my life. And I think it's I think is true for everybody. They were all looking for meaning. I found it in some really weird places as a young man. I found it in physical, often dangerous adventures, and that was fine, except that as I grew older, I realized that finding that meaning that way was shallow, but there had to be something more. And I found that meaning, and it wasn't an easy search, and it happened to me during a battle in Vietnam where I finally realized that physical adventure just wasn't enough. And so I began to look for other ways to use my resources, my skills, and I was able to do that in the Foreign Service, working on peace and justice issues at the United Nations. I helped end apartheid, for example. Anyway, long and short answer is, what keeps me going is the fact that I think I found the true meaning in my life, my true purpose. That's my strategy. The tactics keep changing because I'm increasingly into all kinds of new social media media things. I don't run around the world in airplanes anymore. I don't have to because I've created a lot of social media platforms. But the core answer is finding meaning, and in my case, finding it through giving back in some ways. It keeps me— not only keeps me alive, it keeps me energetic, it keeps me passionate, and I advise it to anyone. Just look for that— what really turns you on, what really is meaningful for your life. I suspect you'll find it in some kind of giving back, and when you do, it'll keep you going forever.

Sure. Yeah, thanks. That's a great, great description. It sounds like for you the, the means have changed. The way to derive that meaning and purpose has changed over the years for you, but in every case, it's always offered you that kind of that love to uplifting spirit and support and kind of motivation to keep going. Yeah.

Well, yes, but I, as I, as I was just intimating a second ago, as a young man, I did find, I thought, the meaning of my life. And I, because I was big and tough and, and smart, I found it in doing all kinds of dangerous things. Including climbing mountains, risking death by avalanches and falling into crevasses and rockfalls and river crossings and all the rest of it, and walking away from it alive every time. And then I found it in the Foreign Service and foreign adventures. I didn't work in embassies in Europe in a fancy suit, London and Paris. No, I, I was in jungles and deserts and wars and revolutions, beginning with the revolution Revolution in Libya in 1969. And I just loved it. It really did, for a time in my life, provide a lot of meaning. For example, I mean, in the middle of the revolution in Libya, I remember being at the embassy in Tripoli and everybody else was freaking out when they saw the first automobiles burning in the public square, rock-throwing mobs. For me, it was wonderful. It was, it was exactly what I wanted to happen, uh, because, uh, I was— I knew I was good at handling that kind of crisis, and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much, and I kept walking away from all these adventures. And believe me, there are plenty of them. I worked as a war correspondent for the Boston Globe. I hitchhiked around the world, climbed lots more mountains. I was in the war in Vietnam for a year and a half in the most dangerous spot the Foreign Service could put me. And I kept walking away from it all. So, you know, I didn't see any reason to quit. But like I think I mentioned, it was in Vietnam when I was almost 30 years old, and therefore not a kid, that I found the true meaning of my life, or at least I found that I hadn't found the true meaning of my life in adventure, that being big and tough and violent wasn't enough. And at that stage, I wasn't, like I say, I wasn't the kid anymore. And so people were living and dying according to the decisions I was making. And it caught up with me. I had to change. I had to change. And that began the real search for, for the meaning of my life, which I don't know if it's going to have me living to 100. That's 17 or 16 more years to go. But I'll tell you this, it's providing an enormous amount of impetus to my life. To find out that the true meaning of my life isn't, in this case, physical adventures, but some kind of giving back. And because I have certain skills, uh, a lot of my giving back is helping people find the meaning for their lives and then coaching them to help solve tough public problems through the Giraffe Heroes Project, the nonprofit that I and my wife Anne Medlock have been running now for 44 years.

Yeah. Yeah, so for you, these adventures and other events really evolved, and they, they keep unfolding, and they're still unfolding for you, it sounds like. Well, tell us about the Giraffe Heroes Project. What's it all about, and what's it like for you to hear stories about people who stick their neck out?

Well, it's inspiring, and that's the whole idea. I, first of all, I want to say very clearly that I didn't start it. I wasn't smart enough The Giraffe Heroes Project was started by Anne Medlock, a single mother living in New York City, and she was fed up by the fact that all the news, New York Times or whatever, it was all about gloom and doom, rapes and pillaging and wars and stuff, and nobody was telling the stories of people doing good in the world, people risking sometimes even their lives, their livelihoods, in order to solve tough public problems. So she decided she would tell their stories, and that's how the Giraffe Heroes Project was born. She wanted to tell the stories of people sticking their necks out, hence the metaphor, you know, giraffe, tall neck. And she did that, and she started doing that, going around New York City with a handheld tape recorder, just talking to people who were sticking their necks out to help make life better in their communities or wherever. And not just in New York City, she was finding people, people were telling her about other people all over the planet who were sticking their necks out. And she realized that there were hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of people sticking their necks out and nobody was telling their stories. And yet, as people have known, as cultures have known for, I don't know, thousands and thousands of years, If you want to get your culture, the people in your culture to be braver and to be more public spirited, you don't preach at them, you give them role models, whether it's Neanderthals dancing around their campfire or perhaps the troubadours of the Middle Ages. Telling stories was a way to inspire people to do more than they thought they could in terms of giving back, in terms of helping solve public problems. And so Anne Medlock decided that she would become the troubadour for our ages. And she did. And I thought, I must admit, at first I wasn't sure that this was the way to do it. It seemed kind of lightweight. But then I began to see what others have seen for thousands of years, the tremendous power of storytelling. And so I joined her and I fell madly in love with her as well. And we've been husband and wife as well as business partners on the Giraffe Heroes Project ever since. Like I say, 44 years, uh, and we're both having the time of our lives. I mean, we, we run the Giraffe Heroes Project now. We've found over 2,000 of these giraffe heroes, and of course they're men and they're women, they're every color in the rainbow, all kinds of walks of life, 60 or 70 countries. And we get their stories told, or we tell their stories, uh, over, uh, now social media. But when Anne started, it was with vinyl records and fax machines and stuffing paper press releases into envelopes and mailing them off to newspapers. Now it's entirely social media, so we've gotten pretty good, and we have a bunch of contractors that help us use the best and most powerful kinds of social media to tell the stories. We, of course, have expanded from that. We've invented over these 44 years programs for kids, curricula, teaching kids to develop their own lives as courageous and compassionate citizens. We've written between us 5 books on civic engagement and sticking your neck out. We want people to stick their necks out, but we've also learned a lot about how to stick your neck out and not get your head chopped off. So we've put that into books. You mentioned my latest venture, which I really love. Badass grandpa. I didn't know what would happen. It was a lark. I have a grandson who is a journalist in New York State, upstate New York, and he was writing a story on mountain climbing and it featured a lot of stuff that I had done. And so he had some paragraphs about his grandfather, me, and at the end of it he says, I really came to realize what a badass my granddad was. Uh, so I said, 'Cause at that moment I was trying to develop a whole new outreach series aimed at people half my age or younger, uh, because, uh, uh, I, I thought I was missing that demographic. Um, and so, uh, starting a short-form video series and calling it Badass Granddad Badass, all one word, and Granddad with two Ds in the middle.

Catchy title.

Yeah, yeah, it's a catchy title. And, uh, I started off on TikTok, and now it's on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. I've done 72 episodes so far. You can plug into any one of those three channels, and they all are more or less the same format. I tell one of my adventure stories, and believe me, I have plenty of them. And then I segue into some life lesson that's connected to that adventure story. Could be a lesson on courage or perseverance or honesty or trust building, trust, whatever. And so I'm able to reach young people with a message, starting with my adventuring, that they perhaps might dismiss if I came at them just as an 83-year-old old fart trying to give them advice.

Mm-hmm. So yeah, you've— you're, you're able to connect with different age groups. You, I mean, you're cutting across different generations here. So what, what's the, what's the common thread there, do you think, that allows you to reach through your stories and through sharing? What's the common thread that allows you to connect with these different generations?

Well, I'll return to something we talked very briefly about a few minutes ago, and, uh, the answer to your question, from as far as I'm concerned, um, is finding the true meaning of of your life. Now, you look in a mirror in the morning, and what looks back at you, you want to know that you make a difference, that you're here on the planet for a purpose. And if you're here on the planet without a purpose, well, hell, that's like a fancy Swiss watch with no hands on it. It doesn't make any sense. So we're all looking for that purpose, and that's the, that's the first part and most important part of the answer to your question. I, I keep coaching people to look for the real purpose of their, of, of our lives. I look forward to physical adventure. Turned out that was too shallow. I've got plenty of friends now who are quite satisfied trying to find it in gaining money and power, and that serves them well for a time. But I see time after time, at a certain point, you begin to realize that even that has a certain emptiness to it, and that you have a certain feeling looking in that mirror that you want to know that when they finally put you in that pine box that you can look back and say, yeah, I was there for a purpose. I was there for a reason. There's a reason why I left the world a better place than when I came in. You want to be able to do that. That's not saying— and I talk to a lot of business audiences, Joe, and I'm very quick to say, I'm not saying you should become Mother Teresa or sackcloth and ashes, nothing like that. No.. You can find service, you can find giving back in many different ways, and depending upon the skills that you've got and the resources and the contacts you've got. A businessman, businessperson, for example, can find real meaning in their lives by making a good product, selling it for a fair price, under good environmental conditions, good labor conditions, being a good neighbor in their communities where their factories may operate, That's a service. A barber has a service, maybe not just cutting the hair, but perhaps, as barbers sure want to do, offering advice or cheering people up who are depressed when they come to get their haircut.

Sure.

A neurosurgeon has a purpose, an opera singer, whatever. There's a way to find the purpose of your life so that your heart is singing when you do it. And that's the way to live to be 100, as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, I heard an interesting quote recently. It said, he who has found the why can bear almost any how. So in other words, once you know what your purpose is, however it takes you to find that and get there, you'll find it because that's going to be the driver.

Yeah, I would like to throw the question back at you, Joe. I mean, you're obviously— it takes a lot of skill and some trouble time, maybe some expense to do these podcasts. And so it's got to mean something to you. It's got to be a core part of your purpose or you wouldn't do it.

Of course. Of course. You know, I keep saying most people my age are retired and I have no interest in retiring. So, you know, for me, it's—

Retired of what? Retired from what?

To do what? When I see people change their thinking about what getting old means from decline to opportunity, that's very motivating for me because we get rid of that old stereotype of, you know, slowing down and aging means whatever it used to mean. Instead, now seeing, you know, a life of optimism rather than, you know, dread. So, that's very motivating for me. And I I guess that's my purpose, to keep on going. I just tell people I'm not done yet, so wherever we are, that's where I am.

Yeah, not only that, but I suspect that you've also gained a good deal of wisdom and that you feel a certain sense of purpose in finding ways to impart it. In your case, your tool is being a podcast host. My tool is more being a writer and a speaker and a podcast guest and than any other thing I can do on social media, but we're both kind of workers in the same vineyard, to use that metaphor. We're both seeing a way to make use of ourselves and to give back, and not only is that helping a lot of other people, it's also extremely fulfilling for my own life, and I suspect yours as well.

Sure, sure. So, you know, we talk a lot about redefining ourselves, creating a new identity, reinventing ourselves after a career of being an accountant or a writer or a doctor or a nurse or military general, whatever. So what does reinvention mean to you? What does that, what does that connote to you, to reinvent oneself in our 70s or 80s?

Well, okay, the first thing is, I know it sounds like a broken record, but the first thing is to grapple with that idea of purpose. I mean, are you satisfied with the purpose you're embarked in? Does it have enough meaning? The second thing is a very practical thing to look at where you are, like your physical body, for example. You're not going to run marathons anymore or whatever it was. You have to look at what your skills are. I mean, I've discovered to my amazement that learning a lot from my grandchildren that I've gotten pretty darn good as a social media maven, and that's where I'm going. I continually trying to reinvent myself, this badass granddad thing. I mean, me on TikTok? Are you crazy? I thought TikTok was where, you know, you— I mean, I have, um, you may have mentioned this, I've got 120, 125,000 followers now, which people tell me is really good. And I laugh at that. I mean, I thought that people with followers are— they're called influencers. I'm sure you know this, Joe. And I'm now being pursued by producers who tell me I'm now a major influencer. Can you imagine? I thought influencers were like young women that showed you how to put nail polish on. Sure, that was an influencer. Yeah, no, I'm an influencer. I've even been offered a lot of money to put ads on my badass granddad post. I'm not going to do it, of course, but, you know, so, and so I found a whole new channel. I started this last year when I was 82. And, um, my aim is— I'm at— I've done 72 episodes, I think. Yeah, 71 episodes. And my aim is to do at least 100 and then just keep recycling them. Um, and then by then, next year or 19— in 2 years from now, I'll figure out something new to do. I'll use some new technology. Um, I do a blog as well, which is more, uh, uh, political. And serious than Badass Granddad. Um, the last couple episodes, for example, I've been trying to raise the alarm that artificial intelligence may be doing more harm than good, and I'm trying to convince people to stop being so damn enthusiastic about AI because there are some real dangers there they should take into account. I also have done a couple episodes on Trump's war in Iran. I think being in the Foreign Service especially I have a lot of knowledge of that in that area, and I have a lot of knowledge of what war is like in the deserts and jungles of the world. And I think what Trump is doing is utter madness. And so I'm trying to convey that also through my, my political blogging. And then there's these podcasts. I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I look for people like you, Joe, who are obviously at the top of their game doing a great podcast. Personable and effective as hosts. And I love being on shows like yours because it's another way that I can, you know, sit down with a knowledgeable, capable person like yourself and see if we can come together and tell people something, coach people in a way, offer some tips, generate some comments, all of which will help people find more satisfaction with their lives, beginning when they're 15 and hopefully until they're 100.

Sure. Yeah. Well, thank you, John. Thanks for those kind words. You know, it's, um, for you, you keep touching a lot of different, um, emotions, I think, in your work. And you reach people, as we said, different ages. And, um, you're able to kind of connect and draw those, those important principles for people and helping them helping them stay open to finding that purpose. And I'm wondering, what about people who maybe have lost that sense of purpose or meaning and, you know, they've lost their direction? What advice do you have?

Can you think of any way? Well, yeah, it takes guts to really look hard for your purpose, especially when you begin to realize that what you are doing with your life maybe isn't as purposeful as you'd like. And then you feel a little lost and you're now 55 or 65 or you're 35 or whatever and you're flailing. Well, you know, the advice I have is not extraordinarily different. For me, I get a brief, brief story here. I was once on a panel discussion in a conference center and I was on a panel whose purpose was exactly your question. How do you, when you're flailing, how do you find a meaning? How do you find a meaningful life? How do you figure it out? I was on the panel and with my stories and another person was a deputy attorney, no, what do you call him? The head of the UN, Secretary General of the UN who had been in the Maquis, the French Resistance in the Second World War. And had these horrific stories to tell about his time during the war and the dangers he faced. And the third person was an astronaut. I think it was Ed White who told the story of walking on the moon and everything that that entailed and how dangerous it really was. And, you know, we all told these stories, and these stories were three great stories.

Of course.

And people were sitting forward in their seats. Oh, very interesting. We finished, and then there was an applause, but it seemed to me the applause wasn't that enthusiastic after these stories. And finally, I figured it out when a young man in the back of the room stands up and says, excuse me, you guys, but I am not going to, you know, do the wars and revolutions and stuff that Mr. Graham has done. I'm certainly not going to fight the Germans in World War II, and I'm never going to walk on the moon. So, you know, what is it? What— how did you guys get the message? I mean, what, what do you— what's your advice? In other words, your question.

Sure, sure.

And I, I sort of stumbled and stammered, and— but White, the astronaut, found the answer that I use ever since. He says, he says, look, you're looking for the meaning of your life. If you commit yourself to looking for that meaning. You're going to go down lots of, lots of wrong paths, but you got to keep, you got to keep looking until you find it. And some of us never make that search. We never get dedicated. We're too afraid to even begin it. But the three of us, he says, you know, we were meant to do these things. It was, it was in the cards for us, uh, and we did the best we could in the circumstances that we could. But if for us it was like being hit over the head with a 2x4, we're the Missouri, we're like Missouri mules. We're the tough ones. We don't get it, he says. But it doesn't have to be that way for you, he said, pointing to the young man in the back of the room. You don't have to fight the Germans. You don't have to walk on the moon. You don't have to go through some of the fiery adventures that Graham's gone through. You don't have to do that. You can find that meaning in much simpler, smaller ways. And I used that ever since. And the simpler, smaller ways that White was talking about, the kinds of things he was talking about, They're not extraordinary. It's taking a quiet walk in the woods, looking up at a starry sky, talking to trusted friends. I used to do a lot of workshops and I would coach people to use the, the red light effect. And the red light effect is you come to a traffic light and you just missed the green, so you're stuck there for 60 or 90 seconds on the red light. Well, instead of drumming your fingers on the steering wheel and imagining and wishing you had made the green, shut your mind off. You can't go anywhere, so just shut your mind off and for those 60 seconds think about the questions of meaning in your life. It's amazing what'll happen. And then you're driving on past that red light now that it's green, and you see a billboard, and the billboard has some words on it. Maybe the purpose of the billboard is to sell shaving cream, but nonetheless, there's a word or two on it. All of a sudden, because of the introspection you've had at that red light, uh, means something to you in a special way. And so you think about it. So you start looking with little things, because I think the signs for a meaningful life are all around us., and we tend to ignore them, mostly because we think they're too minor and it's just silly. Well, it's not silly. If you pay attention, the signs for developing what you need to develop to find a meaningful life are all around you, and they may be something as simple as a 60-minute meditation at a red light. It doesn't have to be fighting the Germans. It does not have to be walking on the moon. It can be something much simpler. So the answer is keep looking Keep looking and look in even the smallest, most banal places you can think of. And then also at the same time, take a look at your own skills and resources. Of course, if, for example, you're really good and have always been really good at math, then, you know, maybe it's, it's something to do with, with, I don't know, helping your small town balance its budget, or if you're a really good singer, I mean, maybe it's performance arts for you, in which you can make people relax and enjoy the beauty of music and drama, etc. So take a good look at who you are. There's a reason why ego has claws, man. It's a reason why you're good at math, or you're good at singing, or whatever it is. So take stock of who you are and use that as a pointer. So these are a couple of suggestions. Take stock of your own skills and resources because you weren't given them or you didn't develop them for no reason. And then look for even the smallest impetus to check out what might be meaningful in your life and to begin that search, especially if you have this underlying feeling that what you're doing now as you age isn't meaningful enough and that you're likely to be put in that pine box without ever having done something where you said, "Yes, that was me. I did that and it helped a lot of people." Well, that was a pretty good answer.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you touched on so many points there, but a lot of it is that period of mindfulness when we're stopping and we're not struggling and not pushing our mind to think and pursue different goals. So it is that period of quiet mindfulness where we're open. And like you say, the seeds are all around us, the seeds that we can plant, they're all around us. And they don't come on necessarily when we're searching for it. I mean, for some people, maybe like you or the Secretary-General, the meaning and purpose is a big big, you know, 2x4 that hits us in the head. It's obvious. But for others, it is a time of kind of being receptive. I think it is being receptive to what the possibilities are. And we don't know, but a lot of it is based on our talents, of course. But I love that answer, John. Thanks very much for that.

So I give it, you know, I give it, I give it often because I get a lot of responses and comments on the Badass Granddad series. I'm really That's the biggest part of it. I love it. I thought because I'd be talking to much younger people, I'd get a lot of snark. But no, I get a lot of positive feedback. And a lot of that is more than just, hey, terrific. It's more honest searching and honest questions like the one you posed 5 minutes ago, the one I tried to answer. They're saying to me, well, how do I find that meaning? How do I develop the courage? I'm scared to death that if I do this, I'll get fired. I'm scared to death that I could lose this relationship. I'm scared to death that I could get physically hurt doing that. I mean, how, how, how? And they ask all these questions. And so I'm able to say a lot of things like you and I have just been discussing about looking for the true meaning of your life. And because they've just gone through 1 or 2 or 5 of my Badass Granddad episodes, they know I'm not some I'm not some, you know, untried, unproven, faux guru, a false guru. They know I'm 83 years old and relatively experienced, so they listen. And it's a way to reach them. And I suspect that for you, you understand perfectly well that your podcast is your way, a way you've got at reaching people. People listening to this may never correspond with you, but you're talking to them, we're talking to them. A way to, to reach people. And my way is, uh, is, uh, is similar to yours. We're both using media to get the points across. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've gone from being a social media expert to a senior influencer.

Yeah, a senior influencer. Is that— yeah, yeah. I, I, I had no idea. I started a year and a quarter ago, and I had no idea what would happen. I just did it because my granddad says, hey, badass granddad.

Yeah, well, I, you know, it's on TikTok. I, I've gotten— I've grown really fond of TikTok myself. I, I have a little channel there and I've been doing little short videos and I love it because it seems smaller and personal. I never got into Facebook, but, um, TikTok has a, has a kind of a homey feel to it, so that's why I enjoy it.

But yeah, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm a little, a little askance of the new ownership, uh, and I'm waiting to see how they they do it. If they start trying to censor me, then I'm quitting TikTok.

Sure.

But I do a lot of— my biggest audiences are on Instagram, actually, and YouTube. TikTok is second or third, I forget. But yeah, it's great. And 3 minutes, everybody can watch 3 minutes.

And so That's good.

Also, I've done my memoir. You mentioned it briefly. Its title is Quest. Quest. Subtitle is Risk, Adventure, and the Search for Meaning. It's also an audiobook so people can just put it, rev it up when they're driving to work. And it's got a lot of my adventure stories in it, plus a lot of the subject you and I have been talking about for the last half hour.

Yeah.

And so, you know, we all find different ways to get the message across. And, you know, we're going to find— you and I are both going to find new and better ways next year and the year after.

Yeah, yeah. I think we might cross paths and see what other doors we can open, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So where can people learn more about your work, John, and, you know, access the badass Grandad series, if that's on TikTok.

Well, let's start with the Giraffe Project because there's 2,000 stories there, and its URL is simple. It's the giraffe, g-i-r-a-f-f-e dot org. I spell it out because it's amazing how many people don't know how to spell giraffe. 2 S's. That's my own personal website is my name, johngram.org. Badass Granddad, as I said, is badass, all one word, and granddad's got two D's in the middle. And TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, just plug in that into the search boxes and you'll quickly get there.

Uh, your books like Quest, is that available?

Your book Quest is available. You can just order from your local bookstore, get it from Amazon. It's, uh, it's on Kindle, it's in print, and now it's in as an audiobook, so you listen to it.

Good stuff. Yeah, yeah, you're up to some good stuff, John.

Yeah, yeah. Well, the thing is, as we've been talking, this is not— this isn't— this is wonderful, this is fun. Uh, and, and, and you mentioned retiring. I just laugh at people. What would I on earth would I retire from? I'm having too much Fun. I mean, that is not just having fun, it's getting feedback from people, especially people in Badass Granddad or people that are inspired by giraffe stories that they read. And we publish them all over the place on social media, uh, and, and that positive feedback, it's like, well, why, why should I stop? I'm doing so good here. Sure. And not only that, but there's a great sense of personal satisfaction. And if it means that I live longer, well, that's fine too, but that's not my main purpose.

It's a little balance. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. I have a, uh, uh, in my, in my will, I have a, uh, uh, uh, uh, a statement in my will saying, look, if I ever get a terminal illness and the end is coming, uh, you know, uh, what I want to do is, um, take a light jacket and, uh, go off, uh, 50 miles away to Mount Rainier, where I live, and start climbing toward the summit of Mount Rainier in a light jacket in the winter. I won't get to the top, of course, but I'll get about halfway up and I'll fall into a crevasse and that'll be the end of me. And that's a great way to go.

That'll be one way to go.

People laugh at me, but what the hell? Mountain climbing was such a big part of me.

Yeah.

And I found a lot of meaning in it. But I was a very young man and I hadn't really figured things out yet in terms of deeper elements of my own life.

Well, that's the beauty of things. We can explore all these different opportunities and we're not stuck. We can continue to open new doors. And that's what I love about aging, you know, the opportunities that come upon us and the doors that we can open, because it's not a time of decline, it's a time of opportunity.

Anyway, absolutely. Yeah. And the other thing I gotta say too is that my wife, my wife, Anne Medlock, is even older than I am. And, and the two of us really sort of regenerate each other, you know. Yeah, we can't do— we both hesitate getting out of a soft chair, and we both stop halfway up the stairs. But there you are. I mean, you know, the physical part of it is inevitable, but the mental and spiritual part, I mean, I just think we just keep growing and getting better.

Yeah, we adapt and we keep growing. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, John, for this conversation. It was a delight. I really appreciate your being on my program.

Well, I appreciate you asking me, and I'm so thankful you're doing this.

Thank you, that means a lot. So if today's conversation, uh, to our listeners gives you something to think about, you'll find more tools, ideas, and discussions at my website, livingto100.club, and inside my Living to 100 community. Until next time, keep moving forward with purpose curiosity, and a commitment to living well at any age. Thanks, and see you next time.